[Closed] Real life broadband reviews

Zen. Not the cheapest but 100% reliable and hassle free.

Don't really have any issue with virgin in our area... Regularly get 350mb download and 40 up.
Occasionally have to reboot the router but who doesn't?

EE were always great for me until they didn't start supplying fibre when we had it installed in the street.

Was on Virgin fibre for a lot of years. Work used to pay for it, so change of job meant couldn't really afford it anymore. They gave me a perfect excuse to cancel when, working from home one day, they just took the service down for a few hours. No warning email, nothing on the web, just hey fark you customers! In the process of listenning to endless automated menus on the phone, trying to find out what was going on, I decided to bin them then and there. Apart from that the service was great and I’d still be on it now, if I could afford it!
That’s my experience with Virgin.
Now on cheap Sky and it’s reliable but slow. Painfully slow.

Moved from BT to Virgin a couple of months ago. Faster speed, more reliable, less than half the price. Setup was also easier than with BT as they sent a guy round to get it all working rather than just post a router through the letter box.

Vodafone have been fine for me. No slowdowns at peak times and haven't needed to call customer services so no issues there. Think I'm paying about £25 a month including line rental.

Also worth considering mobile broadband depending on location. I got my mum EE's 4G broadband router, which ticks along happily at 100mbps in the middle of nowhere. No line rental either. She's on the 200GB/month package.

Still with BT and there Mesh system. Happy with it if expensive. Can't get virgin. We get over 75mbps which keeps everyone happy, streaming, and two gamers on line. No downtime !

Had been with Virgin for 10+ years - service was good although expensive and their std router was somewhat weak - anyhows, have just moved over to using a Three unlimited sim ( £20in a month) and a TP-Link TL-MR6400. I also bought the Google mesh wifi home system but the router seems plenty powerful enough on its own. So far no issues, and for context I have 2 kids who constantly stream (sometimes on concurrent devices each...jeez) but can still stream to TV whilst they hammer the bandwidth. So far... v pleased.

Moved from Virgin to Zen due to router issues with the Hub 3 and the lack of a fixed IP. (More correctly a cheap fixed IP, it's £500 a month on Virgin Fibre).

Another vote for Zen.

Very very reliable with excellent UK based support and FritzBox router as standard.

Zen

How long you been with BT? My parents swapped to Plusnet and BT phoned them saying you've been with us a while, we will match the plusnet price and give you a new router too.

Zen here too - I always go for a provider with a rep for customer service

Zen looks good.

We are on Virgin which includes the telly. Who do you use for your viewing?

I have used Virgin for over 10 years, they have lost the customer service they had & put up the prices but the BB is great, I had to go down to 50mbps when I asked them to price match BT & the service has never been so consistent, always 50 regardless & I have never had any problems streaming (also have 2 daughters so unlimited is a must), it's just a shame they are no longer reasonably priced, £70PM for the XL telly BB & LR when it was less than £50 last year.
I'll look into Zen when they next hike there prices or the contracts up as the TV service is not worth a toss along with the landline.

Cheers.

Some good info.

I am looking at Zen too as I like their int'l phone package due to oversea calls.

p/s: was looking IDnet previously but they don't have service in my location and Zen is readily available so Zen is my choice for now.

I hadn’t heard of Zen before and so thank you for that.
We only need broadband and possibly landline.
BT did pull a deal out of the bag last time we went through the full leaving process (I seem to remember 3 levels of leaving customer service first).

Was paying a lot for BT with TV package. Never had a problem with their internet.
Switched to Zen and subscribed to BT sports app and Sky Sport with Now TV.
Much cheaper and more content. Service has not changed.

I had no problems with TalkTalk. There was a line issue when I moved house and it took a little while but open reach had to come and dig the drive up. I always go with the best cash back deal. Moved to Bt and got £125 cash back, £85 reward card and a free Galaxy tablet. I’ll move provider again in 18 months.

Also worth noting that the different link through sites sometimes give different monthly costs.

@Zippykona  We stream everything through an AppleTV box. There's a mix and match approach to subscriptions though the NowTV app is crap on the box. Mrs Sandwich insists on Greys Anatomy and NowTV won't allow her to watch it live despite having the correct subscription in place.

TVPlayer app and subscription allows for Eurosport plus ITV2-4 and a whole host of other stuff.

Been with Sky for years. Generally reliable and with good customer service but the new Q router has been crap for us, always drops connection to my phone. I wish I kept the old one. Seems reliable enough with the laptop and Netflix via sky TV box though. We're getting fibre for £8 a month (plus cheap line rental) at the minute so can't really grumble I guess.

Switched to Plusnet last year and after a shaky start, email stating something had failed with the order, it was all in techo jargon and didnt make sense.

I responded and asked for clarification of what it actually meant, and with no replys after 72hrs of waiting went on there forum, and asked the same.

One of there reps came on and had it sorted within a day, since then its all been rock solid.

I would suggest if anyone ever has issues with Plusnet you get a quicker response with people that actually know what there on about by asking on the forums.

Edit: Oh and the router doubles up as a night light, the Blue LED on the front even on its lower setting allows me to see where I'm going around the living room at night.

Hyperoptic if you can get it, 950mbits download and 800mbits upload here.

was with BT for calls, broadband and line rental. I needed a fixed-IP for work.

Turns out it's cheaper to move to BT Business. Better router (including 4G backup), a MUCH improved technical support line with people who know what they're doing, a proper SLA, decent online backup, improved connectivity and it's cheaper per month than our old domestic contract. Go figure...

We've been with VIrgin (NTL and CableTel) for a long time and for some reason we have had excellent service. We have the 200Mb down and 40 up, TV and phone and can't complain about anything (except the price). Looked at other options for our address and it is all copper wire based and struggles (neighbours have just moved to Virgin as the copper based solutions are rubbish). We've had no issues with customer services. The Superhub V3 is a bit rubbish, but I've got a Netgear Orbi mesh in place which solves that issue.

I'm with Plusnet and it's generally ok but sometimes just hangs before it will load a page and we get the occasional bit of buffering. If I'm using my phone I often just switch WiFi off and use 4G.

Which makes me wonder if it's worth trying the mobile broadband thing. Or would be about £15/month cheaper and we never use the land line. Only thing would be if the network ever went down I'd have no backup.

Also worth considering mobile broadband depending on location. I got my mum EE’s 4G broadband router, which ticks along happily at 100mbps in the middle of nowhere. No line rental either. She’s on the 200GB/month package.

I've already got a reasonable router and an extra wireless AP, would the Three box just replace the Open Reach modem?

I wonder if three would give me one to try?

Another +1 for Zen. We have their FTTC service. I work from home most of the time, and all our telly is Internet based, and it pretty much Just Works.

As others have said it's not the cheapest, but it is reliable, IPv6 support is good, and you can get up to 8 static IPv4 addresses should you want them IIRC.

Can’t comment on other companies.
We can’t have Virgin and after being with Bulldog many many moons ago and then ending up with Talk Talk after they took over we moved our line back to BT.

Have never had any issue with BT price matching. No haggling or anything. Last year was a simple ‘PlusNet is whatever’ they matched with no messing.

Happy with BT here, for us, it just works.

another zen user here. 0 issues happy to pay that bit extra for that.

Zen for me too. Never once had an issue in 6 yrs.